What Is A Strong Contract Candidate?

The fact of the matter is some candidates are better than others. Skill set aside some candidates you can work with and others you can't. The question is how do you tell. I try to get seven committeemen’s out of each candidate I work with. If I can't get at least five from them I begin to question whether or not they are worth working with.

1. Commit to a start date. - If the candidate can't commit to a start date how can you market them for a contract position that may need them to start right away?

2. Reasonable expectations regarding rate.

3. Take and Return calls. - If they don’t return your calls don’t work them. Their is nothing worse then having a candidate up for an interview that disappears during the final hour

4. Interview in a timely manner. - Things move quickly in contract staffing and if they need a week notice for an interview they are not going to be a good candidate

5. They need to call you after an interview ends. - Right after an interview is the most dangerous time as a recruiter because at this point everybody knows more than you. Your candidate must commit to calling you right after the interview so you are back in the know.

6. Willing to complete a contract and take themselves out of consideration with other positions.

7. Give names of manager of previous positions. - If they can’t give you one manager reference then they probably have performance issues

Those are the seven commitments that strive to get from all of my candidates.